Recent trends in automobile technology have included the development of navigation systems incorporated within the driver control cluster. These navigation systems are generally designed to help a driver reach a specific destination without using a physical road map. As such, an automobile navigation system can make the driving experience more convenient and enjoyable.
In addition to providing basic driving directions, some navigation systems also supply resource locations, such as restaurants, hospitals, points of interest, and so forth. However, as new features and capabilities are added to automobile navigation systems, the interaction between driver and navigation system can become relatively complex. Therefore, it is desirable to have a driver-to-navigation system control interface that is both convenient and intuitive, in order to minimize driver distraction.
Another consideration affecting the design of automobile navigation systems is the cost associated with implementing various sophisticated features, such as color map displays, synthesized speech commands, touch screens, and the like. As such, the cost/feature trade-off typically becomes a determining factor regarding the degree of complexity designed into a navigation system for the consumer market. Furthermore, the relatively high cost of current “premium” navigation systems, which typically include a profusion of high-tech features, generally limits their marketability to the luxury, or near-luxury, car market.
Accordingly, it is desirable to provide a relatively low cost automobile navigation system that provides route guidance information to a typical consumer/driver. In addition, it is desirable that the low cost automobile navigation system be incorporated into the automobile audio system for convenient and intuitive operation. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics of the present invention will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.